Yādava Vināśa at Prabhāsa

As the appointed hour drew near, Kāla (Time), in the form of Yama, walked among the houses of the Vṛshṇis and Andhakas every day, and a host of dreadful omens fell upon Dvārakā. Kṛshṇa knew that the thirty-sixth year had come and remembered Gāndhārī’s śāpa (curse). He ordered a festival of pilgrimage to the seashore at Prabhāsa.

There the Vṛshṇis and Andhakas, deep in drink, quarrelled. Sātyaki cut off the head of Kṛtavarma and was himself killed together with Pradyumna. In grief and anger Kṛshṇa took a handful of eraka grass, which became an iron pestle (mushala). In every warrior’s hand the grass became a pestle, and the clans destroyed one another.

Kāla walks among the Vṛshṇis

The Vṛshṇis and Andhakas kept to their ways. Kāla, who is Yama himself, began to walk daily through all their houses. In one place he appeared terrible to look at, misshapen and bald, with a colour mixing black and tawny. In another he went about unseen. Great archers, by the hundreds and thousands, shot their arrows at him, the destroyer of all beings, yet none could strike him. Day after day dreadful winds that made the flesh creep blew for the ruin of the Vṛshṇis and Andhakas.

The omens

The roads filled with rats and with pieces of broken pots. At night rats gnawed the hair and nails of sleeping men. Mynah birds shrieked without stopping in the Vṛshṇi houses, day and night. Cranes copied the hooting of owls, and goats the howling of jackals. Pigeons with white and red feet, driven by Kāla, wandered through the homes of the Vṛshṇis and Andhakas. Cows bore asses, mules bore camel-foals, dogs bore kittens, and mongooses bore mice.

The people of the Vṛshṇi line did pāpa (sin) without shame and began to hate brāhmaṇas, the pitṛs (ancestors) and the devas. Setting aside Balarāma and Janārdana, they dishonoured their other gurus. Wives deceived their husbands, and husbands their wives.

Agni burned with black, red and dark-red flames, blazing apart and turning to the left, against the auspicious course. At dawn and dusk the Sun appeared every day ringed by headless trunks. In the kitchens, worms by the thousand appeared in the food as it was carried out. While the puṇyāha mantras were being chanted and the great ones were doing their japa, the sound of running feet was heard, yet no one could be seen. Stars clashed with stars and planets with planets while the people looked on, yet no one could see his own star. Inside the houses the Pāñcajanya conch wailed by itself, and everywhere asses brayed with dreadful voices.

Kṛshṇa knows the hour has come

On the thirteenth day of the dark fortnight, and again on the new-moon day, Kṛshṇa saw these omens and knew that the hour had come. He said aloud that Rāhu had turned the fourteenth into the fifteenth and that an eclipse had come. In the dark fortnight the moon should have been waning in order, yet a tithi (lunar day) had been lost, and an eclipse had fallen upon it. He said that the same had happened at the time of the Bhārata war, and now it had come again for their own destruction.

Thinking on Kāla in this way, Kṛshṇa understood that the thirty-sixth year had arrived. He remembered everything that Gāndhārī, scorched with grief for her slain kinsmen, had spoken in her anguish. He remembered too what Yudhishṭhira had said when he saw the dreadful omens before the war. Wishing to make it come true, Vāsudeva ordered a festival. His men announced that all should go to the seashore at Prabhāsa for a tīrtha-yātrā (pilgrimage).

The divine emblems depart

The iron Sudarśana cakra, with a vajra set in its nave, which Agni had given to Kṛshṇa, rose up into the sky while the Vṛshṇis watched. The sun-coloured chariot was dragged away by its horses while Dāruka looked on. The four great horses, swift as thought, ran away over the surface of the sea. Balarāma’s tāla-dhvaja (palm-tree banner) and Kṛshṇa’s garuḍa-dhvaja (Garuḍa banner), so honoured by them, were carried off by apsaras. Day and night the apsaras called out again and again that the Yādavas should go on the pilgrimage.

The festival at Prabhāsa

The Vṛshṇi and Andhaka warriors set out for Prabhāsa with their wives. They gathered great stores of food and drink, of liquor and meat. With their armies and their wealth they travelled with horses and elephants and made their camp on the seashore.

There Uddhava, who knew yoga and was learned in moksha (liberation), took his leave and went away. Hari knew that the Vṛshṇis were about to be ruined. He honoured Uddhava with folded hands and did not hold him back. The warriors watched as Uddhava rose up and filled the space between earth and sky with his radiance.

The food that had been prepared for the brāhmaṇas was spoiled by the smell of liquor and thrown to the monkeys, a grievous pāpa. The great drinking of the Yādavas went on among hundreds of instruments and the play of actors and dancers.

The quarrel and the first killings

Before Kṛshṇa’s eyes Balarāma drank together with Kṛtavarma, and Sātyaki, Gada and Babhru drank as well. Drunk and careless, Sātyaki mocked Kṛtavarma before the assembly. He asked what kshatriya would kill men sleeping like the dead, and said that the Yādavas would never forgive the deed Kṛtavarma had done. Pradyumna, foremost of chariot-warriors, backed Sātyaki’s words and scolded Kṛtavarma.

Then Kṛtavarma, his anger swelling, pointed at Sātyaki with a scornful gesture of his left hand. He asked how Sātyaki and the others had cut down Bhūriśravas when his arm lay severed and he sat as one lifeless.

Hearing this, Keśava, slayer of enemy heroes, cast a sideways look of anger at Kṛtavarma. Then Sātyaki reminded Kṛshṇa of the account of the Syamantaka gem, which had belonged to Satrājit. Satyabhāmā, weeping with unbearable anger, sank into Kṛshṇa’s lap and stirred his heart.

Sātyaki rose in fury. He declared how this wretch Kṛtavarma, helped by the son of Droṇa, had killed the five sons of Draupadī, Dhṛshṭadyumna, Śikhaṇḍī and the sleeping heroes. Swearing by truth that Kṛtavarma’s hour had come, he rushed upon him before Keśava and struck off his head with his sword.

As Sātyaki got ready to kill others, Hṛshīkeśa ran to hold him back. But the Bhojas and Andhakas, driven by Kāla and mad with drink, swarmed around Sātyaki and beat him down with the leftovers of their food. Seeing this, Pradyumna, son of Rukmiṇī, came to Sātyaki’s help, and the two fought fiercely against the Bhojas and Andhakas. Overwhelmed by their numbers, both were killed while Kṛshṇa looked on.

The grass becomes the pestle

Seeing Sātyaki and his own son Pradyumna fallen, Kṛshṇa, joy of the Yadus, took a handful of eraka grass in his anger. In his hand it became a dreadful pestle, hard as the vajra and made wholly of iron. With it he struck down the chief warriors before him.

Then the Bhojas, Andhakas and Vṛshṇis, driven by Kāla, killed one another with those pestles. In the hand of every man moved by anger a blade of grass became like the vajra. Even a mere reed, when thrown to strike, looked like a pestle. All this came to pass through the brāhmaṇa śāpa (curse).

Father killed son and son killed father. Mad with rage, they fought one another and fell to the ground, dropping like moths into a flame. In none of those who were struck did any thought of flight arise. Sāmba, Cārudeshṇa, Pradyumna and Aniruddha met their deaths, and Kṛshṇa’s anger grew. Seeing Gada fallen on the ground, the bearer of the Śārṅga bow, the cakra and the mace left the Yādava line with no survivors.

Then Babhru and Dāruka, conquerors of enemy cities, said to him: “Bhagavān Kṛshṇa, you have killed many men. Let us now go and find where Balarāma is.” In this way the great host of the Yādavas perished at Prabhāsa.

Sources

• Mahābhārata, Mausala Parva, Chapter 2 (Kāla among the Vṛshṇis, the omens, Kṛshṇa knows the hour)
• Mahābhārata, Mausala Parva, Chapter 3 (the departure of the emblems, the festival at Prabhāsa, the quarrel, the pestles)